


Hypnagogia

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-13
Packaged: 2018-01-01 09:47:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1043377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Brad asks Chester to move in with him he doesn’t tell him about the ghost that cries all night or the water that turns to blood should you ever wish to take a bath</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hypnagogia

When Brad asks Chester to move in with him he doesn’t tell him about the ghost that cries all night or the water that turns to blood should you ever wish to take a bath.

They meet at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, and Brad has one hundred and thirty days. So when Chester relapses at home, sobbing hysterically on his bathroom floor with a needle in his arm, it’s Brad he calls. And Brad says “Come live with me for a while.”

So Chester does.

Brad’s house is immaculate, and makes Chester wonder how he stood living in squalor for so many years. There isn’t one single rusty spoon lying around, no beer bottles on the fireplace or take-out menus on the floor. It’s hard to believe Brad was ever a drug addict – there’s not a single sign of his past.

Everything is perfect.

Brad works nights, which Chester found difficult at first. Night time is always the worst. At night he can’t drown out the voices in his head telling him he’s worthless, telling him that just one more hit, to just grab a syringe and make it all go away. And the first night he called Brad’s cell and cried down the phone to him for an hour.

By now, though, he can sleep soundly alone. Most times Brad isn’t home when Chester leaves the house at eight to go to work, and they only cross paths when he finishes his shift at five.

Brad doesn’t force him to go to meetings. He doesn’t throw out his syringes if he finds them hidden, taped to the back of the TV or to the underneath of the kitchen drawers. He doesn’t make him talk about his addiction. He doesn’t make him cut contact with other addicts. He doesn’t make him do anything/

And everything is perfect.

But then the ghost starts crying.

At first Chester thinks it’s a dream, or at worst a bad trip. The crying starts quietly, and he can picture a young girl curled up somewhere with a hand over her mouth to stifle her sobs. As the night wore on it gradually got louder until he couldn’t sleep.

He got out of bed and walked around the entire house to see if there was maybe a TV left on somewhere, then he went around again to try and work out where exactly the noise was coming from. Maybe next door? After all, Brad and Chester often hear them arguing or fucking.

He decides that yes, it’s their neighbour’s daughter crying, and goes back to bed.

The next night, though, the crying is more hysterical than the night before. Chester pulls on some clothes and heads outside, crossing the lawn and knocking on their neighbour’s door. A tired looking woman with grey roots showing through her blonde highlights opens the door and frowns.

“I’m sorry,” Chester says, unconsciously scratching at the track marks on the inside of his arm, “I know it’s late. It’s just…your daughter is crying again. Is she okay?”

The woman frowns deeper. “Is this some kind of a fucking joke?”

“I…what?”

“Tasteless, completely fucking tasteless. Leave us the fuck alone.” She snaps before slamming the door closed in Chester’s face.

Chester walks back to the house, stunned, and when he steps inside there isn’t a single sound to be heard. That’s it, he thinks, I’m going completely crazy. But something about what just happened won’t leave him alone and suddenly he’s itchy, crawling out of his skin.

He rushes upstairs and digs through the box he keeps under his bed and pulls out a fresh syringe, a spoon, a lighter and a little baggie of heroin. He goes into the bathroom silently, and shoots up.

That’s where Brad finds him the next day, sleeping on the bathroom floor with one leg up on the toilet.

“Chester?”

Chester opens his eyes slowly and looks up at Brad, confused. “Somebody was crying,” he says. “Somebody was crying and it isn’t your neighbour’s daughter.”

A shadow passes over Brad’s face briefly before he shakes his head. “Our neighbour’s daughter disappeared last year, Chester. Are you sure it wasn’t just the heroin?”

He sits up awkwardly, and squints at the light. He definitely did the drugs after he heard the crying. Definitely. Or did he? Was he sober? Is he sober now?

“Don’t you ever hear her crying?”

“No,” Brad says firmly. “No I don’t, Chester, because that girl is probably dead and buried by now. So leave it alone.”

“But I heard her crying!”

“You didn’t. You didn’t hear anything, you lunatic. You were off your face on drugs, again. Look, I’m starting to get tired of this crap. You can’t just do drugs then make up excuses. You did drugs, fine, whatever. Just don’t lie to me about why. If you need to go to rehab again then I’ll pay.”

“No, Brad. Fuck you. Fuck rehab. Fuck the things I cannot change. And whatever.” He gets to his feet shakily and stumbles out of the bathroom, slamming the door to the bedroom once he is inside.

***

When Brad asks Chester to move in he doesn’t tell him why, but he isn’t allowed to go in the basement, not ever.

The crying won’t stop.

Chester draws himself a bath and for a long time the rush of the water against the porcelain drowns out the girls heart filled sobs, but then her voice is just as loud as before. The water burns his skin when he steps into the tub, but it feels better than the big nothing he has felt all day. He wants to prove Brad wrong – it is not the drugs.

The crying gets louder.

“Shut up!” Chester screams at the top of his lungs and suddenly she’s gone. The crying stops, and the only sound is of the tap dripping.

He takes a deep breath and relaxes into the water. Only for a second, though, because when he brings up a hand to rub his tired eyes it is stained with blood. He can’t breathe. The blood is so dark it looks black and he can’t get out of the tub quick enough. He scrambles to his feet, slipping and falling to the bathroom floor with a sickening crack. He lays there, naked and covered in somebody else’s blood, his head throbbing.

Probably he’ll die here.

And the crying starts again.

He has to move. He has to get out. He grabs the pants he wore earlier and pulls them on shakily, slowly making his way downstairs. The crying gets louder, crescendo-ing into a terrible, heartbreaking wail.

Chester’s vision is impaired by bright red spots, floating in front of his eyes, but when he gets to the basement he can see clearly. The crying rises to one long, horrible scream and then stops entirely.

He doesn’t know why his hand is reaching out for the door knob, but he lets his body do as it pleases. He opens the door and tip toes down to the basement in the darkness. His head feels like it’s going to explode and now, instead of crying, is an insistent whisper. A frantic murmur. But Chester can’t make out what the voice is saying.

“Hello?” He calls out as he reaches the bottom step and stumbles in the darkness. He reaches around for a hanging light chord and eventually grasps one, tugging hard until the room is illuminated by a sickly, yellow light.

The room is huge, and a large table covered in tools is in the centre of it. Chester steps closer and frowns. The tools, they’re all rusty and dirty. Saws and knives and screw drivers and hammers and garden trowels. All of them covered in dirt and dark with rust.

In the centre of the room the whisper is a little clearer, but he still can’t make out what’s being said.

“Hello?” He tries again. “Hey, can I help you? Are you the crying girl?”

He feels sick and dizzy, but he staggers across the room to an industrial freezer. It’s padlocked, but the padlock is open and hanging there, waiting for somebody to open it.

Standing over the freezer Chester hears the voice whisper, “Mom? Mommy?”

“No,” Chester tells the freezer, knowing this is all only because he hit his head, “no I’m not your mom.”

“Mommy,” the voice says again, louder now. “Mommy, he said he’d make the voices stop. He said he’d pay off my debt. He said he’d help, mom, you have to understand.”

“I’m not your mom!” Chester says again, angry this time. “Who are you talking about? Who are you?”

“He said his name was Brad,” the voice says, “and he said he’d save me.”

Chester grits his teeth and tears the padlock from the catch, lifting the lid of the freezer.

He barely has time to react to the dismembered body parts of a young girl in the freezer, turning the ice they lay in red. He barely has time to realise that it’s not rust on the tools, it’s blood.

And Brad never wanted to help him.

Brad works nights, but never has any money to speak of.

Killing is a full time job.

This all goes through his head in a second, because when he turns around Brad is standing there with something in his arms covered in plastic. He smiles warmly and pushes Chester gently out of the way. He dumps the thing in the freezer and pulls off the plastic.

Another girl. Twenty, maybe. All of her fingers are gone, and her eyes are filled with blood.

Chester is dreaming, of course. He’s probably still unconscious on the bathroom floor.

Brad shakes his head, “I told you, Chester, not to come down here.”

Chester goes to say something but Brad takes a quick step towards him. He may be dreaming, but the stab of the needle into his neck feels real enough. And the air bubble makes it to his heart within seconds.

***

When Brad asks Mike to move in with him he doesn’t tell him about the ghost that cries all night or the water that turns to blood should you ever wish to take a bath.

When Brad asks Mike to move in he doesn’t tell him why, but he isn’t allowed to go in the basement, not ever.


End file.
